Economics Is Wrong About Growth And It’s Ruining Everything

Even Adam Smith foresaw an end to growth. How did we lose sight of it and think we could grow forever?

Nearly every economist I’ve heard say anything about economic growth says it’s necessary for a population’s well-being, as has nearly every comment I’ve seen on the subject from non-economists.

They add that economic growth requires population growth, with its tragic results, so far, of pollution, resource depletion, and global warming.

They further add that both the economic and population growth must be exponential, but they don’t consider the results of exponential growth.

Exponentials grow fast. In less than the time from the Roman Empire until now–that is, within a few thousand years–even modest exponential growth would run into physical absurdities, as illustrated in these posts in the Do The Math blog, by Caltech-trained UC San Diego physics professor Tom Murphy: